In 2014, the institute for the first time propagated the plant variety. In 2018, Thoai became the first Vietnamese doctor working as a senior expert to provide technical assistance to the project on growing sandalwood on 2,000 hectares of land in Kenya and Uganda.

According to Thoai, after succeeding in sandalwood propagation in Vietnam in 2014, he brought seeds to Africa in 2018 to germinate. In 2019, he supported African people to grow seedlings on a large land area.

Since then, Thoai has been traveling between Vietnam and Africa as a senior expert.

Kenya and Uganda have many forests that have been ruined. Thoai said he can help them generate new forests.

“I am proud of being the Vietnamese person who helps Africa develop green forests. And by doing this, I can introduce Vietnam to thousands of Africans,” he said.

The most important thing in his work is changing the mindset of locals and making them understand that they need to plant forests to have long-term livelihoods and help prevent droughts and floods.

Besides Kenya and Uganda, he is planning to run a project on growing sandalwood in Tanzania, about 50,000 hectares. Thoai is also working as an advisor to a Vietnamese company which wants to develop 4,000-5,000 hectares of sandalwood in Vietnam.

Thoai believes that planting sandalwood can bring major benefits. Also, as the plants can be intercropped, growers can have revenue from both sandalwood and other crops. After three years of growers, farmers can harvest leaves and seeds used to make tea.

Farmers can only harvest wood after 10 years of growing, but during the first 10 years, farmers can have revenue from leaves and seeds. 

Sandalwood trees always have to be intercropped with host trees and while waiting to harvest sandalwood, farmers can make money from the host trees. Vina Sandalwood Group is collecting leaves, seeds and wood to process a wide range of products, from incense and bracelets to soaps and oil.

“We are focusing on making three groups of products, including healthcare, beauty and spiritual products,” he said.

Asked about potential profits from growing sandalwood, Thoai said the expected profits will be tens of times higher than from growing acacia. One hectare of sandalwood will bring turnover of VND8.1 billion after 12 years.

Thao Nguyen